EK Supreme CPU Water Block

Testing Methodology

For the testing phase of the review I have chosen to test the EK Supreme against a number of well known water-cooling blocks: the Swiftech Storm G4 rev. 2; the XSPC X2O Delta, and of course the D-TEK FuZion.

A Laing DDC Pro pump with OCLabs alternative top will be used to assist in making a comparison. I shall be looking specifically at pressure drop, flow resistance and cooling performance from within a CPU only water-cooling loop. I will be running the Laing DDC Pro pump at 9v,10v, 11v and 12v and the pressure drop and flow of the pump will be noted. All tests will be run 3 times to ensure the elimination of any oddities. I have included the setup details below:

Pressure Drop

For the pressure drop test I used a 25L portable water container filled with 20 litres of water, with a 1/2" plastic threaded barb placed in the bottom to represent the reservoir. A stop tap was inserted immediately after the 1/2" barb to allow for a faster water-block change. The True-Flow pressure meter was used to record the head pressure per 1 minute testing cycle. The pump was primed and let run for a short period to ensure that no air bubbles were left in the loop.

The first run made was with only the pump and pressure meter included in the loop and the water pressure noted. Then for second run the EK Supreme waterblock was included into the loop and the drop in loop pressure recorded, and the same procedure was done for each of the water blocks.

In a similar test to the pressure drop testing above, the flow test will highlight just how much the waterblocks restrict the natural flow of a water-cooling loop. Utilising a very simple setup consisting of a pump, I/2" ID tubing, water blocks, bucket and a stopwatch we will see how far removed from the absolute flow of the pump, that the water blocks hinder flow. Incidentally, this is the same way that we test GPU blocks in past reviews...hence the included image below. Running the pump into the bucket for one minute and then measuring the amount of water pumped will be the 'absolute flow' of the pump. Once again the pump will be run at 9v,10v,11v and 12v.

To calculate the flow-loss or restriction of each waterblock, they will each be included into the loop (one at a time) and the same procedure followed. The flow rate will be recorded in Litres/ hour. All simulations will be run 3 times each to ensure uniformity of the results and an average then taken.

Loop Simulation and cooling performance

I have decided to impliment a control setup for the testing phase of this review. In doing so I have replicated a CPU only water-cooling loop similar to that in conventional water cooled setups, but also one that should return consistant and unbiased performance results. The EK Supreme and other water blocks performance will be assessed at the Laing DDC Pro's operating voltage of 12 volts. For each run, the pump was allowed to run for 20 mins to ensure the evacuation of all air from within the loop. The temperatures were taken at 30 minute intervals to allow them to 'settle'. Two instances of ORTHOS will run simultaneously in order to simulate load.

Arctic Silver 5 was used as the TIM for testing all water blocks in this shootout I have recorded temperatures at idle, load and and an overclocked loaded state; all temperatures were taken using Core Temp 0.95.4 beta and water/ambient temperatures were taken using a common household mercury thermometer. The mercury thermometer was allowed 5 minutes to aclimatise to air and water and then the temperature recorded. The setup used has been included below:

Please be mindful that all water block mountings were done so without a back plate. Hypothetically, the findings reported on the following page could be potentially better if the ability to screw the water block right down were available at the time of testing.

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